And here, Techdirt misses the point: Madison was talking about government-granted monopolies in the general sense, that is, one company being granted the legal right to control all production and sale of a given product, service, or raw material (e.g., a government-granted cable monopoly), as being evil things. And indeed, such monopolies, when granted by government, are evil things, because they infringe on the rights of any individual who may desire to do business in such property.

Protecting the right to control one's own intellectual property, which does not infringe on anyone's right to sell theirs or any other property, is not the same sort of monopoly. After all, we all have "monopolies" on the uses of our time and energy, for example Michael Jordon could always have withheld his preeminent basketball skills--to the detriment of us all--and been entirely within his rights. The same can be said of an author, artist, musician, etc.

Indeed, I'd guess that upon reflection, Madison would rather not have used the term "monopoly" at all with regard to intellectual property. He might rather have used the term "priviledge," which at the time meant the same as "right" today, as something that government should protect. As usual when considering what the Founders said about some issue, one must be careful to consider their use of the language and how it differs from ours.

Read the story to which Techdirt links. It's a bit different than Techdirt's version. I also concede that my reading might not be precisely the Volokh Conspiracy's, but then I'm not making entirely the same point.

This is ominous. But, no profiling!

I suppose that spending five years in a warzone would have an affect on a person. Doing so with no discernible, rational philosophy would probably be a sort of personal, self-inflicted hell. I read as much of this account as I could, but the nihilism and naturalism was too much to bear.

It sort of felt like looking at birdshit on the crumbling facade of a post-modern office building made to look like it had been through an earthquake. If you know what I mean.

Wow, another free Wi-Fi scheme. I'm sure it'll be secure and reliable.

Why is it that IT folks will go to such ridiculous lengths to get something for free? It's not like they're historically underpaid, or anything.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a high (for the topic) 6489 Diggs, is a list of countries that haven't yet converted to the metric system. Yes, the US is one of them. And yes, the rest of the world can kiss our American asses. The cost of conversion here would be far more than elsewhere, and, well, we just don't want to. And the rest of the world will continue to work with our quaint, antiquated English system because they must.

So all you Diggsters can just sit and spin.

As I've hinted before, the lack of intellectual property protections will drive things underground.* Companies will stop patenting things, and start treating them as trade secrets. The result will be essentially the same as if there were adequate IP protections--companies and invidividuals would be required to come up with truly innovate works, not just derivatives--but the timeframe would be extended beyond the patent's inherently limited scope.

Note that this applies to patents. Copyrights, on the other hand, remain a mess. Perhaps someone will come up with unbreakable encryption that can be applied to copyrighted material, including software, that will render digital copyright infringement almost impossible. That'll do away with physical distribution in a heartbeat, of course, leaving only the computer-equipped able to enjoy music, video and other, non-physical art.

And those who oppose intellectual property rights will only have themselves to blame.

*Note: I'm not sure if this is exactly what the linked story is saying. It's my take on the issue, however.

"Arabs Unwilling to Accept Responsibility." Today's obvious recurring theme. I believe thas has been the case for, oh, about a century or so?

Boing Boing calls this purchase agreement from the early 1900's "abusive." How can one be "abused" when one freely agrees with the terms of a license? When one gives up one's right to make agreements, no matter how onerous they may appear, one gives up the right to control one's existence.

Of course. Boing Boing wants the opposite: to be able to do whatever one damn well pleases if one is a "consumer." If one's a producer, on the other hand, all bets are off. I imagine Boing Boing consumers like Steven King's Lanoliers, all gaping maws eating up whatever's left at the end of time. You'll have to watch the B-movie to get the full effect.

In general, this just shows the long history of recorded intellectual property being licensed, not purchased, giving the lie to those who say that they've "purchased" their music and video and should be able to do whatever they want with it. Again, all I can say is: read the label, and if you don't like the terms, don't buy it. Engaging in theft is not a legitimate alternative.

Go here for a short history of the Middle East as it pertains to Israel and the Palestinians. I'm sure some will call this Zionist propaganda, and so be it. From everything I've read, it's entirely accurate.

It's important for all Americans to watch, to understand the stakes and how such otherwise unfathomable actions in place like Iraq can make some strategic (albeit utterly evil) sense.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a healthy 6084 Diggs, is a good public service announcement. One shouldn't publish other people's private information, including that of suspected criminals. Suspected criminals. Or, maybe even convicted criminals.

We sort of have laws against vigilante justice in this country, and for good reason. Many Diggsters, judging from the comments, don't seem to recognize this. On the other hand, there are a fair number of reasonable comments, and so that's something of a positive.

Overall, a rather lame #1, and not a good return for the Digg Report after a few days' absence.

And does Boing Boing and the rest of the looney Left realize what this means about American justice? The very fact that a court can require the release of such information (rightly or wrongly), in the face of Bushitler and the Neocons, demonstrates that plenty of checks remain against legislation like the Patriot Act.

Looks like the conspiracy buffs will need to return to the days of tin hats and lizardroids.

More on Chavez's efforts to buy goodwill in Latin America through cheap PCs. This would bother me, if I weren't so sure it's bound to be a miserable failure.

Update: They're not even that cheap. This guy's a real wacko. That, or crazy like a fox: maybe he'll make PCs just good enough to drive out other private Latin American competition (to the extent that it exists), and then just nationalize the government-supported Chinese "partner."

Once again, a government is organizing (or offering, depending on one's point of view) a service that private companies would provide if they could make a profit doing so. In all likelihood, if even marginaly "successful" (by whatever bureaucratic definition of success used), municipal Wi-Fi will drive out future, better technologies by offering just enough service for the typical user at just low enough of a price. And, once in place, government will have a vested interest in making sure "its" service is successful, up to and including making it prohibitively expensive for competition.

Mark my words. Things like this will set back better technologies, like WiMAX, for years to come.

"Bush says he’ll veto excessive spending bills." When I first read that headline, I figured it must be from The Onion. There's simply no way that Bush can seriously be saying this so late in the game.

I know the American public has a short memory, but it's not that short. And this is just the sort of thing that the Left will go ballistic over. Bush has yet to veto a spending bill; what could possibly be the benefit of starting now except in a fruitless attempt to win back fiscal conservatives?

As I believe I've mentioned, I hate politics.

And so it starts, and when Israel responds, as it must, it will be blamed for "escalating" violence that has been raging for months. Probably, it will also be blamed for ending some truce that's been violently raging for weeks.

And, as expected, government causes dislocations in the economy. And, also as expected, this will inevitably be blamed on "Big Oil."

Frank Lloyd Wright is turning in his grave right about now. Is there any function in this form?

Cindy Sheehan had some powerful friends. Too bad they were among the enemy.

Those silly pranksters.

It's amazing how Boing Boing goes out of its way to show that terrorism is impossible and thus our guarding against terrorist acts must be the height of both stupidity and oppression. While I wrote just previously about the wrongness of a bunker mentality, I do believe (naturally) in using investigative efforts to locate those who might be inclined to commit acts of terror.

The fact that the particular folks mentioned in the linked story were fools (and, I don't necessarily take one "security guru"'s word on that) doesn't mean that they weren't ripe for the picking by someone with better knowledge on how to commit mass murder. Finding them and incarcerating them, thus removing them from the field of play, seems like a good enough objective on its own.

And as usual, Boing Boing attacks, but it provides no real alternatives.

To me, this is precisely what must happen when a nation assumes a bunker mentality to external threats, rather than removing those threats directly. The Left laments these sorts of things, while simultaneously refusing to allow us to go over those who are directly and indirectly responsible for the threats we face.

If we removed the state sponsors of terrorism, then the terrorists would be that much easier to find, capture, and execute. We haven't found bin Laden because we can't go into Pakistan to look for him, and that's just one example.

The twisted logic in this is impossible to unravel, which is why dealing rationally with the Islamic world is inherently impossible. Salman Rushdie receives Knighthood, which necessarily means that Muslims should commit attacks against... well, non-Muslims, obviously.

An insult can't go unpunished, right?

I haven't listened this podcast, but I find something either simply wrong or just sensationalist about the question "whether it's really possible to make money without doing evil." That's so fraught with straw men and bad philosophy that I don't have the stomach to delve into it. All I'll say for the moment is that millions of people do so every day, and so if one doesn't find it self-evident, one simply isn't looking.

Cox and Forkum's, er, unusual take on Father's Day. It's good stuff, though.

And, to all the fathers (including myself): Happy Father's Day!

This would be cool, if I could stomach DirecTV. Which I can't, and so I won't.

Here we have three major American companies--Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google-- engaging in precisely the same sorts of competively-driven acquisitions, and the FTC decides to investigate all of them.

How can anyone maintain the illusion that this has anything to do with competition?

I agree that it's a bit over the top to say that intellectual property theft is worse than "real" property theft. At the same time, I hardly think it's any better. The lack of violence may seem worth noting, but in reality there would likely be plenty of violence were one to try to break up the larger and more powerful Asian counterfeit rings. And, there are plenty of "real" property thefts that involve no violence at all.

The one thing that does make intellectual property very different, though, is the ease of it. It's trivial today to steal thousands of pieces of intellectual property, all without leaving the comfort of one's home, and just as trivial to distribute it to thousands--or millions--of other people. It's also relatively easy to do so anonymously; if one is careful, the chances of getting caught approach zero.

One can't say the same about "real" property.

An interesting discussion on atheism and Ayn Rand. I agree: she's the only one who's ever gotten it right. Rational atheism isn't against religion, it's for reason and man's life on Earth.

An interesting debate on the healthcare system. Notice the two different approaches to the argument (any reader of this blog should be able to recognize which argument I support). The comments are also illustrative, at least in part because they demonstrate a lack of knowledge of how government regulation has dictated private insurance policies. The private payor system hasn't developed in a vacuum.

Can anyone wonder what kind of nation China is, that it maintains such tight control over how people name their children?

What this really means is that such decisions should be made by free people via free markets, not by government fiat via political calculations. Had our government acted as it should have when Middle Eastern oil fields were first nationalized, and American investments confiscated, we wouldn't have nearly these concerns.

Here's the money quote in just about all modern discussions of intellectual property:

"For better or for worse, real property should not be confused with intellectual property, which is not subject to the same rules of scarcity."

I'm not sure where this idea of "scarcity" regarding intelletual property, or the lack thereof, orginated. I'll have to do some research, because it's such a ridiculous notion. The only reason that intellectual property isn't scarce nowadays, as opposed to when it was pressed on vinyl, tapes, and CD's, and when books were properly bound, and video provided on tapes and DVDs (let alone simple film at theatres), is precisely because technology has made its copying in virtually infinite numbers entirely trivial.

It's the fact that intellectual property can now be so easily copied that makes it seem like some sort of "non-scarce" resource. Of course, the artists themselves are plenty scarce, which seems to escape those who make this inane argument. The latter use the seemingly infinite nature of digital intellectual property, which is really just intellectual property like any other, only in a digital form, the crux of their argument--thus evading the fact that property requires not just possession, but also control.

They like to argue that the creator doesn't actually lose any thing when his intellectual property is taken, but that's not the point. He loses control over it, which is entirely the point. It would be no different if someone were to let me keep my house, but determined who could live in it with me. Even if they added on space so that I wasn't inconvenienced, the point would remain the same.

Anyways, no time to delve into this at the moment, but delving will be done at some point.

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. And by the Lord, of course, I mean "government."

Michael Moore's "Sicko" has hit the Internet. I'm sure Moore won't mind, since he's all against things like property and the like. He should be happy, since I'm sure his only intent in producing his sensationalist, journalistically sloppy, exploitative "documentaries" is to enlighten his fellow man, and not to make any money.

Making money is evil, see, in Moore's world. Therefore, he should feel right at home. I think I'll download a copy, clean it up, burn it to DVD, and hand it out to ALL my friends. Not for them to watch, mind you--rather, to burn. To my enemies who already believe Moore's shit, I'll just give free copies to watch to their hearts' content.

Maybe Castro will make up the difference for all the good publicity, courtesy of Moore.

If this is true about Bush deciding not to destroy Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons, it's vastly disappointing. It's also ironically more destabilizing for the Middle East--it leaves Israel almost no choice but to go it alone. One can only imaging the maelstrom that will occur should Israel attack Iran.

Or, maybe it would just be a tempest in a teapot, centered around the Arab "street" and with most of the West at least silently commending Israel for its actions. Part of me believes in this particular outcome, and so I'm rooting for Israel to do what it must.

This looks like fun. I'm not sure it's worthy of a Ph.D. thesis, though.

And so, who wins here? I'd say, Iran and Syria. Who loses? Israel and the US, because our "leadership" won't let either deal with the obvious repercussions.

As I've always thought, things are bound to get much worse before they get much better.

I really have to wonder at how gullible people must be to fall for such obvious attempts to do nothing but foment sectarian violence. It must be obvious to everyone by now that these attacks are meant specifically to push Iraq toward civil war, and for no other purpose. It's almost as if these people believe that a self-fulfilling prophecy, even fully identified, can't be altered.

Computer problems, and so light blogging today. Maybe some posts tonight if I can get everything resolved.

I'm not sure what Boing Boing means here by the title "Yahoo! blocks anti-censor, pro-human rghts move by sharehoders." It looks like the shareholders themselves simply voted against the measure. And, indeed, who is "Yahoo!" besides the shareholders?

I agree, although I feel this way about all social networking sites. Ultimately, I think they take too much time to maintain, and so unless one makes a career out of them, their attractiveness quickly pales the more of a time-suck that they become. I used LinkedIn, but primarily only to maintain contact with past coworkers--and, not even active contact, but just to know when they've switched jobs.

When I first saw the recent demos of the upcoming OS X upgrade from Apple, Leopard, I thought the same thing. Much of it just seems to be Vista with a little bit more development, and I'm sure that we'll see much of the same in future Vista updates. The Apple stuff is good, but it's not so far advanced over Vista that it offers a compelling reason to switch.

Of course, the fact that a Mac can run Windows (including Vista) has changed things considerably. My next PC will be a Mac, but I'll likely run OS X only as a novelty.

I've kept up with the healthcare industry for almost 20 years, since getting a job straight out of college where researching healthcare payment systems was a primary function. I noted then, and still believe, that government intervention is singularly responsible for the ever-increasing costs, and I remain amazed that our system continues to produce such quality care.

It started with the creation of Blue Cross/Blue Shield back in the 1930's, then continued with government-granted tax benefits for indemnity group health plans (which caused the disconnect we have today between the care that a person receives and how much he pays for it). Medicare has probably singled-handedly held back preventive medicine in this country, by spending hundreds of billions on highly interventionist care in the last few weeks of life, and the National Institutes of Health spends as much on basic research--without the cost-benefit justication that profits require--as the pharmaceutical industry. All of these governmental interventions, among others, have shaped the American healthcare system into the mess that it is today.

This essay by Dr. Onkar Gate of the Ayn Rand Institute just confirms my own beliefs. It's worth a read.

I'd probably do the same, if I had the money. Of course, I wouldn't have chosen an Airbus.

I've always found my Tablet PC to be a great tool, for a number of important functions. I've changed jobs recently, and so haven't had as many occasions to take handwritten notes, but that's the most obvious Tablet benefit. Other than that, there are times when even surfing the Web can be more comfortable on a Tablet in portrait mode.

Here's a story about a novelist who uses a Tablet PC in just about every meaningful way, it appears. If you have any interest whatsoever in the Tablet platform, this might tip you over the edge.

Notice the comments in this story about the WTC. The nutjobs are out in force.

If you'd like to weigh into the intellectual property debate, go here. My answers were the opposite of what I'm sure IPac is looking for, and the system crashed when I submitted them.

I'm sure it was a coincidence. Maybe you'll have better luck.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a moderate 5568, is a rather inane bit of Anti-Americanism. Really, it's pretty crude. Judging from the comments, though, the Diggsters appear to like it.

I'm not sure I understand Mark Cuban's position in this post:

I recognize that it puts Google in a tough position. In fact, it could also be considered hypocritical on my part because I feel more comfortable with a user off the street buying and owning a DRM free copy of any or all of our movies or shows than I feel with Google holding DRM free copies of my content in order to protect it from pirated uploads. I dont have a good reason, but I don't trust Google with a copy of the worlds content any more than I would trust MicroSoft , IBM of the 1980s or any corporate SuperPower.

Whether or not a "user off the street" has any particular moral compunctions against sharing a file en masse is of course a crap shoot. The "corporate SuperPower"'s have very specific legal interests in recognizing and protecting copyright. They're the ones with the deepest pockets, and are far more likely to be (meaningfully) sued.

Cuban sometimes arrives at some odd positions...

To those Lefists who hold out some love for Communism... Idiotic comments aside.

I'm currently developing a new Web site, www.paperfreesmb.com that will provide on-going infomation, news, and support for small and medium business either looking to implementat a document management solution or expand an existing one.

If anyone can recommend a free content management system (Mamba, Drupal, etc.?) to use in building the site, I'd much appreciate any input. I'm not exactly sure where to start, but I want to develop a site similar to www.gottabemobile.com, www.tabletpcbuzz.com, and/or www.notebookreviews.com.

Thanks!

P.S. Don't go to www.paperfreesmb.com. There's nothing there yet!

Uh-oh! The Council for Foreign Relations has added a secret weapon in its quest for global domination. If you weren't scared before, you should be now.

Harry Binswanger presents an important argument for Objectivists who dislike libertarianism. It's specific to libertarian anarchy, but I believe libertarianism leads to anarchy inevitably and so it's a good refutation of libertarianism in general.

The gist? Libertarianism is a non-philosophical movement, and as such is prone to intrincism, mysticism, and a laundry list of unsupported and often contradictory positions.

Well, the last time I checked, the American economy's at about $13 Trillion GDP, the Russian economy not quite topping $1 billion. To me, that means Russia's still a pretty minor player in things economic, Putin's assertions otherwise notwithstanding.

More nyah nyah nyah from China.

Celebrity Report: A list of (alleged, until verified, I suppose) celebrity Republicans. It's not terribly important, since being Republican is no guarantee of rationality.

I have to say: I use a DVR in the bedroom, and a PVR (Snapstream Beyond TV, to be specific, and I highly recommend it) in the office. I rarely watch a show live, and I always skip through the commercials, and so I can understand CBS's position on ads and timeshiftng. In fact, this raises an interesting question: are some shows inherently more appealing to people who are more likely to timeshift, and if so, then are those shows necessarily harder to sell to advertisers? I wonder.

The bottom line, though, is that the networks need to develop different ways to monetize their broadcasts.

Hee hee. More Cox and Forkum.

Actually, I found the ending to the final episode of The Sopranos to be quite fitting. It was, after all, a show primarily about how "normal" people (read, neurotic, cynical, greedy) can find themselves conducting or condoning evil acts. The show ended by showing the Soprano family at their favorite diner, eating onion rings and fighting with such mundane aspects of existence as parallel parking.

There was no need to kill Tony off, or take him to jail. That was never the show's point.

And, one can then understand why Galloway was so against going into Iraq.

I've always liked this aspect of Lieberman.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a brisk 4690 Diggs, is a link to a cutesy picture of Pluto and the other planets.

Bizarre.

Words don't mean much anymore, it would appear:

"Fighting between rival Palestinian militant groups, meanwhile, spread in the southern Gaza Strip, further weakening a shaky truce forged in the face of punishing Israeli air assaults."

I've always thought the word "truce" was synonymous with "no fighting."

This should get the Ron Paulies in an uproar. But beware: these are MORMONS!!!

Very nice.

If you care about global warming policies, this will be helpful come 2008.

Today's "duh!" moment.

A chapter that was removed from H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. As depressing as that novel is, this is even worse.

My wife just reminded me of a fortune cookie we received at lunch during our trip last year to find a place to live in California. We were moving from Chicago in about two weeks.

The fortune read: "You are heading for a land of sunshine."

And that's the definition of "coincidence."

The Diggsters show their compassion. Read the comments.

Funny, the underaged, hormone-driven dweebs that populate Digg were probably the first to download Paris Hilton's sex video. Now that she's in prison, however, they can't pile on enough.

Scrappleface on Paris Hilton. "What's bad for Paris Hilton is good for America."

It might seem like I'm picking on Techdirt, but I'm not, really. There's just a surplus of posts in my RSS reader, and I'm just now cleaning out my Techdirt folder. Nevertheless...

This post says "While we're generally suspicoius of vendor-funded surveys..." I wonder why. Are they equally suspicious of government-funded surveys, or NGO-sponsored surveys, or tech group-sponsored surveys? Most surveys are funded by some entitity with an agenda, whether it's obvious or not. It shows Techdirt's anti-business bias that they only mention vendors in this context.

The word "free" in "free trade" just throws some people, Techdirt among them. They simply can't understand that free markets require government protection of things like contracts, agreements and, yes, intellectual property. It would be fascinating to hear how trade could go on between nations without the protection of such things.

I suppose the Techdirt types imagine everyone will just play nicely, and share.

It's an open question as to whether our embassies should be promoting American culture. I don't really think that's a legitimate government responsibility. But the anti-American bile apparent in this Techdirt post is of more interest.

Techdirt often says it's not "political." Maybe, but it's certainly philosophical. And I used to think the site was about technology.

A particularly effective Cox and Forkum cartoon, courtesy of Little Green Footballs.

Update: The above LGF links might not work at the moment. They're apparently having some database problems.

Here's Boing Boing breaking trust with a film producer who's made their film available on YouTube. Boing Boing is recommending the use of the "Democracy Player" to pull the video off of YouTube for easier playing.

Perhaps the producer would have no problem with this, but it changes the game a bit. Rather than playing the film in the somewhat unwieldy and limited YouTube player, one can now play in a much more convenient player. Thus, one might be just that much less inclined to buy the "super high quality" formats available on the producer's site.

The film is an indy production called "Four Eyed Monsters," and I'm not a fan of indy films. But I am a fan of intellectual property and the creator's right to control it. Boing Boing, as usual, isn't.

This is pretty cool. Hum that unknown tune that's driving you crazy, and this site purports to tell you what song it's from.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Not only does Google maintain extensive information on our individual Internet activities, but it also has a tendency to be cavalier with intellectual property in general. The problem for the IT Left is that Google has long been their darling, acting as a foil against the company they really consider evil, Microsoft.

Will they accept privacy concerns with Google that they would accept from no other company? It remains to be seen which will take precedence, their hatred of Microsoft or their inherent dislike of business in general. I have no illusions, of course, that they'll be at all concerned about intellectual property.

Note that I'm not convinced that there are general "privacy" concerns in what Google is doing. Once my activities leave my computer, I'm not sure that they're any longer under my control. What happens on my computer should remain private, but that has as much to do with how I use my computer and what software I run.

If Google is going to dominate the world through sheer mastery of technology, then why does it need to engage in antitrust allegations against Microsoft?

I must admit, I do miss Chicago.

This is good advice. We have probably about 75% of our important documents scanned and saved in a variety of places, including on DVD in a fireproof safe. I like the idea of saving to online storage--not so much for the redundancy, but to make it readily available from any Internet-connected computer. Although I always dream of grabbing one of my notebooks in case of a fire or other disaster, it probably wouldn't happen.

I think I'd grab my kids first.

Some thoughts on terror and the Koran...

I love this: "pitting dog and cat lovers against animal rights activists."

Huh?

We used to call it "playing doctor." Seriously. Violence is one thing. Messing around is something we all did, or wanted to do, and is another thing completely. I think we're criminalizing what we once saw as mere curiosity.

This lays things on the line: vote Democrat to end the war. It'll be interesting to see how that theme plays out.

Wanna know which movie critics to trust? Go here.

Skull and Bones! Illuminati! Bilderbergers! Freemasons! Trilateral Commission! Priory of Sion! Reptilian Humanoids! Elders of Zion! Shadow Government! Council on Foreign Relations! New World Order! Military-Industrial Complex! The World Bank! Big Pharma! Big Oil! Big Banking!

It's amazing that anything gets done with so many competing interests.

A snowball in Hell? I'm not sure I remember a prominent UN figure, other than the US Ambassador, expressing support of Israel...

This is fascinating, if maybe a little depressingly predictable: a game called Bioshock that seems to incorporate Ayn Rand's philosophy in its background story. I'm guessing that it's hardly correct, although I'll reserve judgement given this review's use of such libels as the alleged "dog-eat-dog" aspect of Objectivism. I'm hoping that the game publisher knows Objectivism a little better than the reviewer, although I'm not that hopeful.

I'll likely buy and play the game, just to see what it's all about. Read the linked story if you have any interest in Ayn Rand and Objectivism.

Update: More here.

Is Putin crazy like a fox, or just plain crazy? I think the verdict's still out.

Nyah nyah nyah.

Very, very cool. With a name like "scramjet," it must be powerful.

If nuking Iran were on the Republican agenda, it would raise their stock quite a bit with me. Of course, Ron Paul is the only one who wouldn't.

Digg Report: Today's #1 Digg, at a 3929 Diggs, is about the world's biggest digger. It's a nice picture of a feat of mechanical engineering that I bet most Diggers can't really appreciate. Because, you know, it's like, physical.

Well, they should know...

Taking a former KGB agent at his word requires a bit of a leap of faith, or something like it. If true, though, this certainly wouldn't surprise me.

This should be required viewing for anyone who gives presentations.

I can't agree that the G8 Summit is just another "sales meeting." It's more so an opportunity for mixed-economy leaders to get together an figure out new ways to inject force into what should be free transactions between individuals, and to confiscate wealth for political purposes.

I'm a big fan of treaty organizations like NATO the provide for common defense among free nations (or, semi-free, of course, but that's beside the point). But I find the G8 to highlight the dangers of the mixed economy.

The reason we have safeguards against things like illegal search and seizure is because government is the greater threat against our freedoms, not individual criminals. By making such tactics in pursuing even legitimate convictions fruitless, in other words by throwing out cases where such tactics are used, government is less likely to use them for illegitimate purposes. Thus, we are safer from government intrusion.

That's why this kind of thing gets such scrutiny. I don't find it inappropriate, necessarily, but I do see how it stretches the bounds of acceptability.

From this MEMRI account, it appears that our journalistic openness provides great intelligence to the enemy. That might be one of the inherent weaknesses of a free society, or maybe it's just bad decision-making on the part of our mainstream media. Either way, it hurts us terribly in our efforts to enhance our security.